


Grief

by friendlybomber



Series: Ethelan Mahariel Sabrae [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, he didnt thats why, hey why did tamlen deserve that, post-Tamlen's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 13:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlybomber/pseuds/friendlybomber
Summary: When someone dies, we isolate ourselves to grieve. She didn't leave him alone when he was grieving. He won't leave her.





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Not required to read other entries in Ethelan's story. Check them out if you're so inclined.

How could he know what Tamlen was to her? He… knew, of course. How could he not? About the friend, her closest friend, the friend who was so close to being so much more, the friend who disappeared and left her tainted and alone. The friend whose name meant blank hours of numb guilt. The friend who was not a friend, but a brother, a part of her soul. Lethallin.

He knew all these things, but how could he _know_? How could he know the jolt of crunching guilt once she remembered what she had managed to block out for a few brief weeks? She couldn’t expect him to know. She couldn’t expect him to understand.

She walked away from Tamlen, an arrow sticking through his heart, and he knew he should do something. She shrugged off concerns about going off alone at night – there are still darkspawn about, you’re being reckless – and disappeared from camp. She asked no one follow her. They all complied.

Alistair ignored the pointed looks for a while. Finally, Wynne approached him as he gazed into the fire.

“I think you should go check on our fearless leader,” she said.

“She wanted to be alone,” he said.

“What we want and what we need,” said Wynne, “are not always the same thing. Go.”

He found her in a hollow in a cliff wall. She as curled in a ball hugging herself, crying and singing tunelessly the words of a Dalish requiem. He cleared his throat.

“Can I join you?”

She nodded, but shrank away.

He sat down beside her and stared ahead. “Don’t let me stop you. Please, continue.”

She had the voice of a toad. Still, she sang, and in the Calenhad air chill, he swore he saw vines sprouting to reclaim Tamlen’s body. When she had finished, she continued only with inarticulate sobs.

He put his hand on her back gingerly, as if afraid she would bolt. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, Ethelan.”

She curled tighter and cried.

“I don’t know how horrible you must be feeling right now… but I can probably compare. I lost my family, too. The feeling is… well, you just keep crying. I won’t judge you.”

How could he know? Because he had lost Duncan. It wasn’t the same. It would never be the same. But it was comparable. The blood of the covenant stings more when it’s drained.

She cried for much of the night, and he sat with her. No amount of mourning would bring Tamlen back or take away the pain of his passing. But what other options were there?

In the morning, she packed up camp with the rest of them and kept moving. But she was never the same after. Colder. Sadder. Quieter. How could he know what she had lost?

How could he ever bring it back?


End file.
